Retaliation

[KarathAnno]

After playing around with it for nearly a week I'm still not any happier with the new retaliation/immortal rotation.

 

It's not game breaking but it is much less fluid, reactive, and fun then it used to be.

 

I would gladly lose some of the damage buff or the crit increase and give it a rage cost again if they'd take it back off the gcd.

[Hankeypankey]

I have always loved tanking on my jugg, but with this change to Retaliation has made it feel so dull. You either are rage capped waiting for the GCD so you can maintain your Blade Barricade, or it can fall off. When tanking you should not feel like its necessary to sit capped on your classes resources to make sure you maintain your tank buffs. Powertechs and Assassins both retained the nice flow while tanking. There needs to be a fix. I used to love and greatly enjoy every spec on my jugg, but having a spec that feels so clunky with no alternative has ruined it, and frankly frustrating. Need to see a Dev post about this please.

[NYRfan]

As far as PvE is concerned, you can pretty much take Retaliation off your bars now if you're playing Vengeance. It doesn't proc anywhere near enough, and instead feels like a consolation prize for your last attack not landing. Even then, I'm not sure I'd delay much for it, particularly because I'm not stacking alacrity and there are several other higher priorities in the rotation (Force Scream, Impale, Shatter, Vengeful Slam, Sundering Assault, Ravage, Vicious Throw).

 

In PvP it still has its job to an extent, and it's at least functional for Immortal. For Vengeance PvE, however, it's a dead slot and they really need to do something with it.

 

Agree. It seems absolutely pointless to use as vengeance in PvE. In the rare event it does proc (from a missed attack), it actually "damages" the vengeance rotation by being on the GCD now. You need to be using FS, Impale and Shatter whenever off-cool down, vicious throw whenever it procs, and ravage when none of those previously mentioned abilities are ready. There is rarely a moment where neither FS, Impale, Shatter, Sunder, or Vicious Throw (proc) are ready, and in those rare moments I usually throw down a vicious slam (smash) on single targets since its free and high damage. Next GCD one of my abilities will be ready.

 

There is no place for retaliation because you are 95% of the time sacrificing a GCD when a better ability in the rotation is ready. Does not do enough damage to justify using over any other ability in the vengeance rotation.

 

In PvP it has it's place and I definitely make use of it but that's only a small part of typical gameplay. I really want it back the way it was. Increase the rage cost, decrease the damage idc -- just put it back. It doesn't flow right when its on GCD.

[JackNader]

It's proc rate is so low it renders it rather pointless. It needs to be off the GCD. Edited December 10, 2014 by JackNader

[Carousel_t]

Retaliation doesn't cost rage = use vicious slash instead of assault = profit.

 

I sign /hell_no

Edited December 11, 2014 by Carousel_t

[Hankeypankey]

Retaliation doesn't cost rage = use vicious slash instead of assault = profit.

 

I sign /hell_no

 

The job of a tank is to minimize incoming damage as well as holding threat on the current target. With the recent buff to tank accuracy and the Jugg's Crushing Blow and backhand, damage and threat shouldn't be an issue. The other two tanking classes are able to retain having a no GCD on their main class' ability to provide the spec with their best tanking stat. If you put Assassin's shield on GCD it would make maintaining Dark Protection difficult. Powertech's Heat Blast on GCD would making using the buff it gives difficult to sync with high damage moments. I tank on every class but can say without a doubt Retaliation's GCD is ridiculous. Again I understand the GCD for DPS, but for tanks it MUST be kept off GCD.

[Zadtro]

I find it annoying and pointless now for dps. The only time to use is against dodge in pvp and even then it only hits for a about 2000-3000. It fills in the time a little. I do agree that tanks need the bonus of it though.

[Whitelightr]

edit- really shouldn't post when I'm sleep deprived lol Edited December 15, 2014 by Whitelightr

[wadecounty]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've learned to, cope I guess, with the change but I still don't agree with it. But in response to the Shadow and Vanguard off-GCD abilities; Shadow is a strictly defensive "cooldown", it does no damage, however Vanguard does do damage (and heal) but also has a 1.5 minute cooldown on the ability. It makes arguing against those abilities difficult. It only really compares to Shoulder Cannon which deals 1300x4 every 90 seconds.

 

As much as I would love to see it back off the GCD as a QOL factor, I don't see how you could do it unless you cut the damage it deals by about 75%. I mean SC deals 4.4-5.1k every 90s; if you left Riposte as is but off the GCD you would up Guardian damage by roughly 35-40k in those same 90s (figuring 18 uses in 90s & a simple 2k dmg no crits), no to mention the threat gain in those 90s.

 

As much as it sucks and makes the gameplay feel awkward I'm afraid we're just stuck with it. I just can't see BW redesigning any ability (and realistically the other abilities would probably need adjusted too), this soon after a major change.

 

You're arguing using faulty logic, it makes no sense to compare Riposte to Shoulder Cannon 1:1, not when Guardian tank and Vanguard tank damage is already unbalanced to begin with (reportedly Vanguards are parsing over 500 DPS more than Guardian tanks right now, I want to test this myself at some point to see where the numbers are really at).

 

If Vanguard tanks are actually doing that much more damage than Guardian tanks, then Riposte off the GCD may be needed just to balance it out, unless they want to nerf VG/PT tank damage.

 

Also, you forgot Heat Blast which is also off the GCD.

 

EDIT: However, I want to now also quash the rumor that Jugg DPS is far behind the other 2 tanks, or at least PT tanks. Just tested on a champion Grophet mob on Rishi, myself and my PT co-tank, both in a mix of 186 Dread Master and the new gear, about the same amount of main stat, power and Force/Tech power. He averaged around 1650 DPS, I averaged around 1600 DPS. So no, Jugg tanks are not far behind at least PT tanks, they could maybe use a slight buff.

 

Also, Jugg tanks have AMAZING burst threat. In your opener, you have Smash (decent damage +30% threat), Crushing Blow (HIGH damage + high threat), Backhand (high damage + high threat), Retaliation (average-high damage (+40% crit) )), Scream (decent damage) and Saber Reflect (high threat + threat from all damage reflected).

Edited December 16, 2014 by wadecounty

[Whitelightr]

You're arguing using faulty logic, it makes no sense to compare Riposte to Shoulder Cannon 1:1, not when Guardian tank and Vanguard tank damage is already unbalanced to begin with (reportedly Vanguards are parsing over 500 DPS more than Guardian tanks right now, I want to test this myself at some point to see where the numbers are really at).

 

If Vanguard tanks are actually doing that much more damage than Guardian tanks, then Riposte off the GCD may be needed just to balance it out, unless they want to nerf VG/PT tank damage.

 

Also, you forgot Heat Blast which is also off the GCD.

 

EDIT: However, I want to now also quash the rumor that Jugg DPS is far behind the other 2 tanks, or at least PT tanks. Just tested on a champion Grophet mob on Rishi, myself and my PT co-tank, both in a mix of 186 Dread Master and the new gear, about the same amount of main stat, power and Force/Tech power. He averaged around 1650 DPS, I averaged around 1600 DPS. So no, Jugg tanks are not far behind at least PT tanks, they could maybe use a slight buff.

 

Also, Jugg tanks have AMAZING burst threat. In your opener, you have Smash (decent damage +30% threat), Crushing Blow (HIGH damage + high threat), Backhand (high damage + high threat), Retaliation (average-high damage (+40% crit) )), Scream (decent damage) and Saber Reflect (high threat + threat from all damage reflected).

 

Okay I ran some numbers today, albeit fairly quick and a small sample size. I mainly did it because all the discussions had me curious. I compared my Guardian vs my Vanguard. I changed some gear around on my Guardian to get the numbers somewhat close to get the best results I could.

 

The Stats

Guardian-lv60 with mostly 192/186 3,139 Str/794.1 Bonus dmg/22% D/43% Shield/38.5% Absorb

Vanguard-lv60 mix 192/186 2973 Aim, 694.5 bonus Dmg, 16%/40.5%/42.7%

 

Baseline Test vs Ops Dummy (full debuff mod) with only 186mh, no other gear:

Guardian

208,719 Threat / 3,020 tps

Damage 50,418 / 730 dps

Riposte - 10,874 threat (9.7%)

 

Vanguard

201,721 threat (2,793 tps)

Damage 53,761 (704 dps)

Energy Blast: 6,280 threat (5.2%)

Shoulder Cannon: 5,068 (4.2%)

 

Results were much closer than I expected them to be. Combining EB and SC makes it nearly identical to Riposte. On a dummy parse both classes are close enough to equal you can't call it unbalanced in my opinion. *NOTE* I ran 4 parses for each, then took the average numbers for the results. Like I said it is a small sample size but I'm too lazy to pull 100 parses on each to get extremely accurate results lol.

 

When I saw that I thought okay, maybe "real-world" results are going to be different. Since I didn't have a healer online I grabbed Teek and headed to Rishi. I ran 4 more test on each vs Champion Grophets (I know force resistant but it was the best option without long waits on respawns).

 

Stats in my normal gear for each character shown above

Guardian

Threat 518,428 (7,599 tps)

Damage 105,745 (1546 dps)

Riposte - 26.6k dmg (25.2%), 53.2K threat (22.1%)

 

Vanguard

539,607 Threat (7,506 tps)

Damage 121,344 (1,684 dps)

Energy Blast: 8,524 damage (7.0%) / 17,049 threat (6.5%)

Shoulder Cannon: 5,050 damage (4.2%) / Threat 10,102 (3.8%)

 

Again the results are pretty close. Keep in mind the Guardian was at a slight disadvantage on mob type (force resistance) but has a slight-to-moderate gear advantage as well.

 

Rotations Used and other info

 

Guardian: GS, Sweep, Hilt Bash, Riposte all kept on cooldown. Fillers were MS and Slash. Against Grophet Reflect was used with threat utility. Taunt used on 4th-5th GCD then kept on cooldown. No concern for mechanics, or anything else; just push the max threat/dmg I could.

 

Vanguard: Stockstrike, HIB, EB, SC kept on cooldown. Filler was Ion Pulse. Battle Focus used at every pull and pre-loaded Shoulder Cannon. Pulse Cannon (whatever the new one is called) kept on cooldown and used every proc. Taunted after 4th-5th GCD and kept taunt on cooldown, Recharge used with utility for additional aggro.

 

The Dummy Parses were kept under 90 seconds. I find anything longer messes up the rotations due to not being hit for procs. The Grophets all died with-in 60 seconds to 80 seconds, and I used taunt 4 times on each parse/character (since the Guardian tended have it available for a 5th taunt I didn't use it to avoid skewing data).

 

I use a Razor Naga so Riposte, EB, SC were all used as soon as they were available. SC gets emptied real fast on the opener.

 

 

 

My conclusion:

There isn't a big difference between the two classes. Not like I thought there would be. The only real advantage I saw on the VG was it does have a much higher APM due to the off-GCD abilities (it averaged almost 10 more APM than the Guardian). Combining EB and SC vs solely Riposte on the dummy keeps them pretty equal. However in the real-world SC's long cooldown keeps it from making much difference, while EB has 3 times the cooldown on Riposte and doesn't gain any damage increases like Riposte.

 

I am the first to admit I am much more comfortable on my Guardian than my Vanguard since SoR launch. I would like to see other peoples results, especially with Vanguards. I run my Guardian with the main group for our operations, and my Vanguard is regulated to alt night; this week I'm going to note the boss fights with each and compare them that way as well hopefully.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Whitelightr

[Hankeypankey]

I have tried everything with this change to bring the "feels good" back to Jugg tanking, but nothing helps. I don't know what else to do. My jugg has been my main for years now, and I have never not wanted to play her like I do now. I tried to message Tait Watson to get a moderator/dev to look at this thread for insight, but nothing. Who needs to be contacted for this?

[celsomergulhao]

I've seen some valid points in here, and though I too am having issues with abandoning my old rotation and adjusting it to the new one, I don't want it to go back as it was. BW said that their intention was to make Riposte/Retaliation do more damage than Slash/VS - it does. Not only the base damage, but the +40% crit chance (plus approx 17% base from buffs/str) that makes it around 65% crit chance. It IS good.

Riposte is hitting for slightly less than 2k normal hit to nearly 3k crit (in 186 PVE MH and 176 PvP MH). Slash is hitting for less than 1.5k.

As for rotation, I think it's more a matter of adjusting a NEW rotation. We were used to open with Force Leap > Combat Focus > Force Sweep. Now Force Sweep is no longer a priority for the armor debuff (and GSlash cleave), and as far as boss fights go, I don't have any threat issue with Force Leap > Warding Strike > GSlash as opener. I even liked using Hilt Bash before Warding Strike, and threat wouldn't be a problem at all (I can find and post my parses with that opener later). Get used that Force Sweep/Smash is no longer required EARLY in the rotation, and now can be placed. Right now, we do have a consistant rotation when it comes to buff/debuffing.

Warding Strike (DR buff) > GSlash (F/T dmg debuff) > Riposte (Def buff) > Force Sweep (Acc debuff) in the first 5 GCDs (counting leap as the opener), with the latter 2 being a personal choice of priority (you can FS before riposting). On top of that, we have a riposte critting much more often, and GSlash is hitting like a truck. You can't have threat issues when you're hitting for 5k AoE in the first 3 GCDs (7-8k if you crit). And to end it, the biggest issue we had with threat in the opener, was the case that GSlash would miss. They fixed that by giving us 100% accuracy. You'll be very unfortunate to miss a GSlash (though it's still possible, but rare), and that's why we used Force Sweep instead of Sundering Strike before it. Our main threat generation issues would be due missing our highest threat gen skill. Now, we're just fine in this subject.

Now for the focus management, it is indeed overabundant. Maybe KEEPING the damage profile of riposte as it currently is and making it cost 1 focus? OR, Smash/FS costing 2 instead of 1? Maybe both? Idk, though to be honest, it only feels like overabundant resources in pve, while pvp it can fit fine DEPENDING on the situation.

I say that because, in PvP specially, Slash and Cyclone Slash have another utility, which is the Trauma debuff. This is a powerful resource (specially in ranked arenas), and when you have to use 2 in a row, the resource generation might become short, and something you'll have to watch, but I'm not saying it is hard as it currently is.

 

Sorry for the long post, but I think there's much more to this than just "get it back as it was".

[Vaidinah]

I wanted to share the average results of dummy testing for all my tank characters to see what the disparity was between them. My numbers are from a series of parses with about +-50 DPS difference from the average for each class. I hit the dummy with the armor debuff (which applies all DPS debuffs) and 500k health modules applied. Each tank had a 180 mainhand hilt, a 198 off-hand armoring, and was using 180-186 gear on most pieces with some 192/198 ones. All rotations were done to maximize mitigation + DPS with mitigation taking precedent and thus all tank buffs/debuffs were kept up as much as possible. I used all tank gear so I had no DPS boosts outside of companions with 0 Crit, 0 Alacrity, 0 Surge, no adrenal, and ran either no stim or a fortitude one.

 

Juggernaut: 1504 DPS

3080 Strength

477 Power

2087 Force Power

 

Assassin: 1809 DPS

2832 Willpower

309 Power

2087 Force Power

 

Vanguard: 1843 DPS

2915 Aim

301 Power

2087 Tech Power

 

Now, if you look at the parse listed for each, you can see a difference of 305 DPS between my Juggernaut and Assassin, 339 DPS between Juggernaut and Vanguard, and only 35 DPS between the Assassin and Vanguard. This is a massive difference, especially when my Juggernaut is my most experienced character and as you can see from my stats, my best geared tank as well. My non-Juggernaut tanks have the old augments and little to none of the datacrons while my Juggernaut has almost all of the new augments + all the datacrons (except Rishii's).

 

If my other tanks had the same gear + datacrons as my Jugg, the difference between my Juggernaut and them would probably be around 400 DPS. The Assassin alone is missing 248 main stat and 168 power compared to the Juggernaut. Considering how much DPS tanks do in general, that's a ridiculous disparity. If you look at the Juggernaut parse I have, the crit rates seem fairly low, however, it was actually the closest one I had to my average for that class as even with much better crit rates, I was only doing about 40 DPS more so it's not an unlucky parse.

 

This issue appears to be caused mostly by the fact that Retaliation is on the GCD, which is an almost universally disliked change to the Juggernaut tank playstyle. In a normal boss fight, all the changes to Juggernauts, including the Retaliation one, has given us excessive Rage. Oddly enough, a new set bonus was created for our discipline that makes hitting Aegis Assault on cooldown for maximum mitigation the ideal in general, which conflicts with the main purpose of the skill of giving us Rage and thus it just gets wasted. Since Retaliation is on the GCD, it also gets in the way of the rest of our rotation unlike the way it was before and makes our skill usage pretty clunky. I think just about everyone agrees it's best to place Retaliation back off the GCD and have it cost us 1 Rage again.

 

In place of Retaliation, I would suggest we get a proc on Vicious Slash/Throw that can either reset and/or increase the effectiveness of Force Scream (can be either damage or the shield it gives) every X number of seconds. This helps our class in a number of ways:

 

1) Consumes all our extra Rage we now have

2) Allows Vicious Slash/Throw a dual purpose in aiding our survivability

3) Gives us another 10 meter ability, which helps our mid-range skill usage (a long-time problem of our class)

4) Uses up the extra GCDs that were being used by Retaliation.

 

If you look at our rotation, our skills can be almost evenly divided across 60 seconds to give us 40 GCDs worth of skills. We can use all our core skills roughly on cooldown, we would have Smash (4 GCDs), Aegis Assault (5 GCDs), Crushing Blow (5 GCDs), and Ravage (6 GCDs for 3 uses). That uses up 20 GCDs or roughly half our available skills. Using extra skills for better performance gives us Backhand (1 GCD), Force Choke (1 GCD), and Force Push (1 GCD). That would currently leave us with 17 GCDs to use either Retaliation, Vicious Slash/Throw, Assault, or other miscellaneous skills.

 

With the changes I listed, Retaliation is back off the GCD and Force Scream could be reset by Vicious Slash/Throw let's say every 12 seconds, Vicious Slash/Throw would be used every 12 seconds to proc Force Scream for 5 extra GCDs, and we'd get another 5 GCDs from extra Force Screams. That still leaves us with 7 GCDs that we can use in our rotation for whatever we need. Keep in mind that in a boss fight, we likely won't be playing perfectly and the extra GCDs also give us some leeway in moving skills around in our rotation so that we can prioritize the use of our skills depending on what's best at the time.

 

Anyways, I'm curious what you guys would think about an idea like this and some tweaking would likely still be needed to make this balanced.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Vaidinah

[OMGITSJAD]

Also notice the even larger disparity in the threat generation department. All of that sounds like a good idea to me. Retaliation off the GCD needs to happen and getting more use out of the force scream bubble sounds nice(plus extra dps).

 

I think one problem is Aegis Assault is being tied to so many things at once right now(rage generaton, making crushing blow AOE, damage reduction buff, shield absorb buff, taunt cooldown reducer), but using it on cooldown can be a waste of rage. Before 3.0, using Sundering Assault on cooldown was not bad 90% of the time, because you would never be swimming in rage like we are now. You also had two activators for making Crushing Blow AOE instead of just one, and one of those was an AOE move with decent threat as well, so it meshed well. The skill may need to be re-looked at and be eased up on how many things it does. Personally I think Crushing Blow should always be AOE at this point and move the taunt cooldown reducing part of the 4-piece set bonus to it. Aegis Assault and Crushing Blow have the same cooldown so it's not like it'd change that much. Possibly put the damage reduction buff back on Crushing Blow, but it wouldn't be entirely necessary. If they did, then the absorb buff still applying to it would be something you want to keep up all the time, of course, but not something you would feel necessary to keep up if it meant you would be wasting a good bit of Rage. I think they should try giving us back 1 rage cost and off the GCD Retaliation first so we can see if that just kind of magically fixes our resource issues, as lowering our amount of active Rage could make it so Aegis Assault no longer is likely to waste Rage, so too much changing to that skill may not be required because you wouldn't be punished for using it on cooldown.

 

The biggest disparity to me from before 3.0 to now is the Juggernaut playstyle has a bit more stuff to worry about. Before, you would just try your best to keep all of your skills on cooldown and you were generally good to go. You didn't have to worry about if X buff was on you because you would be using your skills as often as possible so they would always be on you. Keeping your buffs up would just become second nature, and you wouldn't be punished for keeping any of them up by wasting Rage. You definitely had to use Assault a bit more, but they already kind of fixed that by giving us extra Rage in our resource builder. Now, i'm not saying making players think or watch buffs is a bad thing, but I grew to love that kind of, just what I would call a "keep your best moves on cooldown" tanking playstyle. If I wanted to stare at my buff bar all day I would have been playing an Assassin. Aegis Assault changes this up, because it really punishes you for using it on cooldown. The skill is not entirely negative, the shield absorb buff is really nice as well as the extra Rage, but the skill is just so bloated at the moment and we have too much Rage cause we aren't able to use all of it with Retaliation like we used to be able to.

 

Biggest things I would like to see that would likely make me satisfied:

Retaliation off GCD and costs 1 Rage.

Crushing Blow always an AOE and activates our 4-piece set bonus.

Edited December 21, 2014 by OMGITSJAD

[wadecounty]

I'm on board with both of you all's suggestions, but Vaidinah, one thing I'd suggest, try to do a tank DPS test on an actual target that fights back so that you can see where the tank classes stand when they're proccing things in combat, which is what actually matters. I'm pretty sure Juggs lose the most when not defending/shielding/being attacked, and therefore would gain the most damage from actively tanking.

 

One way you could test that I hadn't thought of, just use another player, have them spam their auto attack on you while you go through your rotation for a set period of time, then /stuck when done. Make sure both players are wearing no expertise gear, have the enemy player preferrably be something like a DPS Juggernaut to simulate the same armor rating as an ops boss.

 

I might take a stab at this later actually myself if you don't get around to it. I am always interested in where tank DPS balance lies though, because to me that is still very important, not just mitigation, all 3 tanks should have near equal damage/threat if at all possible.

Edited December 20, 2014 by wadecounty

[Whitelightr]

The problem with extended parsing on a dummy as a Guardian is the lack of procs. It skews the data because much. In the parse you linked you had 23 Assault uses, 15 slashes; and of course Riposte was equal to GS uses. I don't even have Assault on my keybinds, and the only time I use Stasis/Push is the rare times I need to control an add on a boss (adds on Revanite Commanders etc).

 

In actual tanking Riposte would be slightly over 2:1 to GS. Also you wouldn't have 23 'wasted' GCDs on Assault, or 5 GCDs on Stasis for focus gain, nor would you be using Push because you were focus starved and didn't have anything else available. That alone is 33 GCDs wasted in that parse. That's not even factoring in that during a real tanking situation you would be pushing Warding Strike out another 4-5 GCDs to just keep the buff up instead of using it on cooldown.

 

So for the sake of some quick and easy numbers, we can double the Ripostes (Adding 191/dps), factor in 6-7 more slashes (lets low-end it and say 60dps there) for a total gain of 241dps which would have put you around 1,700dps/3,800tps (and that accounts for a rough guessimate of the dps loss from not using some abilities that you did). Which is with-in 100dps/200tps of the VG parse. That doesn't even account for the extra ~4 GCDs from pushing Warding Strike out which would bring the numbers even closer.

 

Nothing wrong with testing, just keep in mind Shadows and VGs tanks don't suffer as much resource/tps/dps issues as a Guardian does on the dummy.

Edited December 21, 2014 by Whitelightr

[KnightTyler]

Nothing wrong with testing, just keep in mind Shadows and VGs tanks don't suffer as much resource/tps/dps issues as a Guardian does on the dummy.

 

Shadow's and Guardian's both suffer on a combat dummy. Shadow's resource regeneration relies on them shielding, deflecting and parrying attacks so they can maintain a fluid rotation. As far as initial threat/damage goes, they would be fine on a dummy but when you are talking sustained threat/damage they suffer just as bad as Guardian's do. (Right now Guardian's have an abundance of Focus due to: Cyclonic Sweeps talent/Visionary passive, Focused Striking passive, Courage talent, Combat Focus and ability cost in general being reduced, all just allowing you to not worry with Focus costs. Don't quote this word for word but In a stream they said they knew it was a problem and that it would be addressed down the road but they didn't have the time to deal with it before 3.0 hit.)

 

I think we should all just be patient and let the Devs enjoy their Christmas and New Year and Im sure they'll get around to answering a lot of concerns after the holidays. They are people just like you and me, with their own friends and families that they want to spend time with as well.

 

Edit:

My conclusion: There isn't a big difference between the two classes. Not like I thought there would be. The only real advantage I saw on the VG was it does have a much higher APM due to the off-GCD abilities (it averaged almost 10 more APM than the Guardian). Combining EB and SC vs solely Riposte on the dummy keeps them pretty equal. However in the real-world SC's long cooldown keeps it from making much difference, while EB has 3 times the cooldown on Riposte and doesn't gain any damage increases like Riposte.

 

In the real world, Energy Blast's cooldown can be shortened to 7.5 seconds if you shield an attack or trigger Ion Cell so the actual cooldown isn't 3 times Riposte's. Riposte is 5 seconds at 60, and 4 seconds while under Saber Ward, which no one in their right mind would waste Saber Ward just to maximize Riposte lol. Its just a little extra "oomph" while Saber Ward is active. Dummy parsing wont be as accurate as we need it to be to compare the things we are talking about so the only real solution is to play content and parse, parse, parse.

Edited December 21, 2014 by KnightTyler

[Vaidinah]

I'm on board with both of you all's suggestions, but Vaidinah, one thing I'd suggest, try to do a tank DPS test on an actual target that fights back so that you can see where the tank classes stand when they're proccing things in combat, which is what actually matters. I'm pretty sure Juggs lose the most when not defending/shielding/being attacked, and therefore would gain the most damage from actively tanking.

 

One way you could test that I hadn't thought of, just use another player, have them spam their auto attack on you while you go through your rotation for a set period of time, then /stuck when done. Make sure both players are wearing no expertise gear, have the enemy player preferrably be something like a DPS Juggernaut to simulate the same armor rating as an ops boss.

 

I might take a stab at this later actually myself if you don't get around to it. I am always interested in where tank DPS balance lies though, because to me that is still very important, not just mitigation, all 3 tanks should have near equal damage/threat if at all possible.

 

While Juggs do gain the most in a real fight, it's not really much more than any other tank class. The new operations don't really have any bosses that I could use for a good simulation so I'd have to do Nefra again on all my tanks just to test this as I could in the past. It's worth noting that I did the SM Underlurker on both my Vanguard and Jugg tank and I got very different results while playing the same way (as main tank who helped with killing adds). I got 1980 on the Vanguard and 1471 on the Juggernaut. Both ran old DPS stims and adrenals, but there were a couple differences. I had 2 DPS relics on the Vanguard (Arkanian SA and Obroan FR) and full tank gear outside of the consumables on the Juggernaut, but had an old 186 off-hand armoring for the Vanguard at the time while the Jugg had the 198 one. This seems like it should give the Vanguard a lead of only around 100 extra DPS for having DPS relics (so let's say only 1880 for the Vanguard), but only a 186 armoring compared to a 198 one so the difference even in a real fight was still around 400.

 

As for the idea behind having a player auto-attack for a long time, that could work, but they would have to do pretty much no damage to be anywhere close to the length of a dummy parse or boss fight. Also, Retaliation would proc pretty much all the time, which favors the Juggernaut significantly as no boss really attacks that fast (3 hits every 1.5 seconds) and with only melee/ranged attacks.

 

The problem with extended parsing on a dummy as a Guardian is the lack of procs. It skews the data because much. In the parse you linked you had 23 Assault uses, 15 slashes; and of course Riposte was equal to GS uses. I don't even have Assault on my keybinds, and the only time I use Stasis/Push is the rare times I need to control an add on a boss (adds on Revanite Commanders etc).

 

In actual tanking Riposte would be slightly over 2:1 to GS. Also you wouldn't have 23 'wasted' GCDs on Assault, or 5 GCDs on Stasis for focus gain, nor would you be using Push because you were focus starved and didn't have anything else available. That alone is 33 GCDs wasted in that parse. That's not even factoring in that during a real tanking situation you would be pushing Warding Strike out another 4-5 GCDs to just keep the buff up instead of using it on cooldown.

 

So for the sake of some quick and easy numbers, we can double the Ripostes (Adding 191/dps), factor in 6-7 more slashes (lets low-end it and say 60dps there) for a total gain of 241dps which would have put you around 1,700dps/3,800tps (and that accounts for a rough guessimate of the dps loss from not using some abilities that you did). Which is with-in 100dps/200tps of the VG parse. That doesn't even account for the extra ~4 GCDs from pushing Warding Strike out which would bring the numbers even closer.

 

Nothing wrong with testing, just keep in mind Shadows and VGs tanks don't suffer as much resource/tps/dps issues as a Guardian does on the dummy.

 

Your numbers are probably fairly accurate for the boost in damage a Jugg would gain assuming optimal play, however, both the Assassin and the Vanguard would also gain more damage than I think people realize. In my Assassin parse, I used the auto-attack, Saber Strike, a total of 35 times, and used only 9 Mauls, 5 Assassinates, and 8 Thrashes due to a lack of energy. If I was tanking and played optimally, I would use Saber Strike far less times and used many more Mauls, Assassinates, and Thrashes. The last 3 skills are important because more of them equals more procs to reset Shock, which in turn gives more Shocks and most importantly, more Depradating Volts, which is the highest DPS skill used by Assassin tanks (40% of my total damage was from this skill alone).

 

For Vanguards, Stockstrike can be reset in a real operation fight (28 uses) so I'd get probably close to double the amount of them and I would use far more Ion Pulses as well due to the extra energy in place of all those Hammer Shots (used 38 times). Also, I'd get lower cooldowns on my Energy Blast and thus more uses for extra energy returned and damage while being off the GCD, which makes the current situation with the Juggernaut all the sadder. Lastly, I could take Reflective Armor (triggering "Into the Fray" deals decent damage back to the attacker) for even more damage and energy. If you recall, "Into the Fray" is a passive for Vanguards that heals them for 2.5% max health and regenerates 2 energy cells when struck with AoE attacks and can proc every 3 seconds.

 

I would estimate that Juggs probably gain maybe 50 DPS at most over the other tanks from a dummy parse to an actual boss fight in general and would still be behind by about 350 DPS in a main tank role. If Into the Fray is proccing a great deal, that difference grows even further. To be fair, if the Juggernaut can Saber Reflect almost on cooldown, they would gain a decent amount of DPS as well, but this is rare.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Vaidinah

[Marb]

I have mixed feelings about the new retaliation, and I don't mind the increased rage income in tank downtime but my main gripe is with aegis assault:

Oddly enough, a new set bonus was created for our discipline that makes hitting Aegis Assault on cooldown for maximum mitigation the ideal in general, which conflicts with the main purpose of the skill of giving us Rage and thus it just gets wasted.

 

Yep, it feels degenerate using our rage builder on cooldown.

[wadecounty]

I have mixed feelings about the new retaliation, and I don't mind the increased rage income in tank downtime but my main gripe is with aegis assault:

 

 

Yep, it feels degenerate using our rage builder on cooldown.

 

The set bonus is indeed definitely unbalanced, considering the other 2 tanks get the same effect on abilities with shorter cooldowns (Whither and Rocket Punch) and in the PT tank's case, the ability's cooldown is even lower in an actual fight!

 

Also our DR bonus is tied to the longest cooldown ability of the 3 tanks as well, although at least we'd actually want to use Crushing Blow on cooldown.

 

In general I think we got the shaft in set bonuses compared to the other tanks. Worst ability to tie the DR bonus to in terms of uptime (PT's got the best, Sins are close to equal to us though the duration is 1 second longer for ours), and worst 6 piece bonus. PT 6 piece is increased duration on Oil Slick (up constantly) and Energy Shield (not THAT long a cooldown), Sin 6 piece boosts their Dark Ward which is up constantly, our 6 piece boosts 2 extremely long cooldowns by extremely minor amounts so the amount we'll see out of it is very minor on most fights.

Edited December 22, 2014 by wadecounty

[Manweth]

Ever since 3.0 launch, I used Riposte on my DPS a total of:

 

 

ZERO

 

ZERO

 

ZERO

 

times.

 

Leave. It. OFF. GCD.

 

Thank you.

[wadecounty]

Ever since 3.0 launch, I used Riposte on my DPS a total of:

 

 

ZERO

 

ZERO

 

ZERO

 

times.

 

Leave. It. OFF. GCD.

 

Thank you.

 

I'd never use it in PvE now as Vigilance (although it was never really intended there anyways besides a minor boost in DPS on trash), but for PvP it has its uses for when an opponent pops a defensive cooldown that raises their defense chance.

 

I prefer it off the GCD, but if it goes back to that, they need to change the way Rage/Focus spec use it.

Edited December 24, 2014 by wadecounty

[DethlaHadyn]

LoL, Retaliation has been off my toolbar since the patch came out.

[Raansu]

Ever since 3.0 launch, I used Riposte on my DPS a total of:

 

 

ZERO

 

ZERO

 

ZERO

 

times.

 

Leave. It. OFF. GCD.

 

Thank you.

 

I don't use it much in vengeance but i use it a lot in rage. I've had it hit for like 8k crit. For something that can never miss its worth keeping on the bar imo. I do wish they would take it off the GCD though.

[Qaoz]

Having no ability to use off-GCD makes Guardian/Juggernaut gameplay VERY clunky, especially when tanking. Long GCD is long, even with alacrity out the wazoo.

 

Guardians/Juggernauts had some of the biggest AOE aggro issues in the game, and they decided that being able to grab aggro on +1 mob in the same amount of time wasn't needed. Good call, Whatsyourface designer guy from the livestream.